Hi everyone!
Saturday, 23rd June 1951 - Exactly 70 years ago today !
Kent v Sussex at the Nevill, Tunbridge Wells
Please Note:
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Though I wasn’t actually at the game, why is it that if I had to choose one day of cricket to watch, it would always be this one?
Well, I can only say that this is ... A day never to be forgotten
#SpoilerAlert
Of course, it all came down to the
last ball of the day …
An inexperienced Sussex batsman … …
3 runs needed
Fear not, dear reader, in a Lord Ric blog, I’m calling it: one bounce through mid-wicket for 4 !
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Let’s start with the Ground
– The Nevill in June.
EW ‘Jim’ Swanton, latterly Cricket Correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, described The Nevill as:
no mean contender for the most delectable English cricket ground
For me, it is my home
ground.
I grew up very nearby.
Walked past the Upper Cumberland Walk entrance on my way to and from St Mark's primary school.
Saw my first County
game there in 1958.
And having been
watching ever since… With The Lads at the Railway End.
I don’t know if Clive James was lucky enough to watch cricket at the Nevill.
But he so well-described the feeling we all have – no matter how far we have strayed from The Wells:
Pulsing like a beacon
through the days and nights, the birthplace of the fortunate sends out its
invisible waves of recollection.
It always has and it always will, until even the last of us come home.
And after the Ground
… the Weather.
As regular readers would have guessed already,
“it was gloriously sunny across the South of England.”
So, let’s turn to the Teams.
Kent fans will recognise plenty of the players:
Opener Arthur Fagg, the first to ever score 200+ in both innings (v Essex in 1938). In retirement he was a First Class (FC) Umpire and owned a fruit & veg shop in St John’s Road, Tunbridge Wells, very near where I went to secondary school.
Along with Ray Dovey and Doug Wright, Arthur was 1 of 3 in the Kent XI who had played before WWII.
Peter Hearn will be known to plenty of The Lads who read the Blog; like us, he went to Skinners’. He was a Prisoner of War in Germany and played for many years for Tunbridge Wells CC, whose home ground is the Nevill.
The Kent No.4 needs no introduction. Just 18, Colin Cowdrey would go on to score over 42,000 First Class runs, including107 centuries and play 114 Tests for England.
At No. 11 Colin Page would become Kent Manager in the Golden Years of the 1970s.
But in amongst those
familiar names are one or two perhaps less known.
Such as No.7 Simon Kimmins and No.8
& wicketkeeper Maurice Fenner.
They were both to play crucial roles
that day …
We’ll be hearing more about them !!
As for Sussex, well, they too had a strong XI.
Sussex would go on to
win the match by an innings and 94 runs.
In Lord Ric’s Blogs Sussex always beat Kent !!
6 of the XI had played before WWII.
Brothers John & James Langridge: the former the only cricketer to score 70+ centuries and not play Test cricket; and
the latter the first professional to captain Sussex.
A footballer for Arsenal & Fulham, at No.5 George Cox Junior (his Dad ‘Senior’
also played for Sussex) was in his Benefit Season.
John Woodcock, latterly Cricket Correspondent of The Times, wrote:
George Cox was a lovely cricketer - in many ways he personified summer days at Hove
George was someone who could "walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch".
In retirement he coached at Winchester, where he taught future India & Sussex captain the Nawab of Pataudi, the legendary "Tiger".
Bishop of Liverpool David
Sheppard – who captained both England and Sussex – said at George’s funeral:
In many ways he was my closest friend in cricket, and I learned a great
deal from him, not only about the technique of the game, but about the whole
approach to it.
If cricket wasn't fun, you felt George would have no part in it.
When you next visit Hove Actually, look
for George’s memorial garden between the indoor cricket school and the outdoor
nets … Up at the Cromwell Road end !
Jack Ypres Oakes, Jim Wood & Jim Cornford made up the remaining 3 pre-WWII players.
Of the others in the Sussex XI, Don Smith, Alan Oakman, Ted James and Rupert Webb would all be playing 7 Seasons on when I saw my first ever game.
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If cricket at the Nevill always justifies top cricketers, then it also warrants top spectators too !!
There was the large crowd, as there always is at the Nevill.
*** Come on, Kent: let’s get a County game back at the Nevill in Season 2022 !!
Sitting high up in the wooden stand between the Pavilion and where the modern-day nets are, Fred and Isabel had driven up the 30 or so miles from Rye on the South Coast.
The wooden stand is bottom left
Theirs was very much a last-minute
decision to watch the game.
The previous evening at just before 10
o’clock they were having a drink in the Queen’s Head in Landgate, Rye.
A friend of Fred’s from Rye CC was standing at the bar and had asked if Fred was going to the game.
Proof - not that it is ever needed - that the Best Decisions are so often made in bars !!
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Sussex won the toss and chose to bat.
The first wicket fell at 16: Don Smith caught Colin Page bowled Simon Kimmins for 7
What can I tell you about the Sussex No. 3?
The eagle-eyed will
have observed in the Sussex XI above there were only 10 players;
no No.3 !!
James (“Young Jim) Michael Parks’ father Jim and uncle Harry had both played for Sussex.
Young Jim had made his debut in 1949.
A future Captain of Sussex and President too, he would end his
career with over 36,000 runs, almost 1,100 catches and 93 stumpings.
Not to mention 51 wickets; and 46 Tests for England!
The only England wicketkeeper in the 20th century to take a Test wicket.
Lord Ted Dexter himself would write of Jim:
You could pick out his style from a
mile away, open stanced with his hands high on the handle.
No furrowed brow for this prince of sweet ball strikers.
Young Jim & Lord Ted at Hove Actually: both play in my Sussex Alltime Dream XI
That Saturday long ago Jim was 19 years old.
And he had needed some help to be available for the game …
For the Sussex No.3
was doing his National Service in the RAF.
Initially Sussex’s
request for Jim to be granted leave was turned down by the RAF.
But when Kent asked the RAF for Maurice Fenner to be granted leave, it was agreed that both Jim and Maurice could play.
Maurice & Jim - Forever Young
That Saturday morning Maurice – who would become a Group Captain and Kent Secretary from 1977 to 1982 – gave Jim a lift from RAF Northolt to Tunbridge Wells.
They knew each other well …
Just a few weeks before they had been in the Combined Services team that played Glamorgan at Pontypridd.
That XI also had future England & Yorkshire
captain Brian Close.
20+ years later as Jim’s Sussex career
was coming to an end, it was Brian – now Somerset captain – who took Jim to
play his final 3 seasons down at Taunton.
Just "lent" to Somerset !
Relationships, eh ...
You don’t need to be on LinkedIn to know that:
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Watching the match at the Nevill was Alan Ross, the future Cricket Correspondent of The Observer.
His poem so
wonderfully describes how Young Jim batted that day:
Yesterday, today, twisted like a rope
In the wooden stand Fred and Isabel were also watching intently.
They were both lifelong cricket lovers and Sussex fans.
Isabel had grown up
overlooking Rye cricket ground.
Fred had captained her
brothers John and Alan playing for Rye.
When Jim reached 50, Fred - he would always claim, entirely unexpectedly – Proposed to Isabel…
as long as Jim gets a
100!!
As his innings progressed, Jim survived a close LBW and then a dropped catch.
And as his score edged into the 90s, understandably he slowed.
In the wooden stand news had spread of the Proposal … no one had left early !
The Kent bowler for the last over was Simon Kimmins, bowling from the Railway End.
He had made his First Class debut for Combined Services v Glamorgan in 1950.
Brian Close and Maurice Fenner were both playing !
Simon Kimmins only played a total of 16 FC games.
Runs: 563 at an average of 22
Wickets: 24 at an average of 41
As for Relationships
…
In 1980 his former wife Gillian married future Sussex Captain and President Robin Marlar.
70 years on, of the 22 cricketers playing that day, only Simon Kimmins & Young Jim are still alive …
Whenever I watch
cricket at the Nevill, I always like to wander round the ground from my seat at the Railway End and watch from
where the old wooden stand was.
By the last ball of the day, Jim was on 97; 3 needed.
In the many years that
followed, Isabel would always say that - though she had never heard of Neil
Armstrong and had no idea that Men would walk on the Moon - her heart was
racing faster than the First Man’s when he took One Small Step for Man !!
The ball was full of length and on middle leg … ...
One bounce through midwicket into the marquees for 4.
100 for Mr Parks !!
As for Jim …
On the morning of the next game
(against Essex) Jim achieved his first major cricketing ambition.
Congratulations, said Jim Langridge. I've got something for you, and presented Jim with his Sussex cap.
True to tradition, the drinks were on Jim that night.
Young Jim by Derek Watts
Jim Senior: Cricket's a game, son, and a game to be enjoyed!
Young Jim & his Dad
And as for Fred and Isabel, they too went off
for a celebration drink - or two !!
They would often tease each other about the
What Ifs of that day…
What If … they’d hadn’t gone to the Queen’s
Head ?
What If ... the RAF hadn't said yes
What If … the last ball hadn’t been one bounce through mid-wicket for 4 ?
But one thing that they never teased about was …
Who is your Favourite Player?
Young Jim !
Mine too !!
Lord Ric of Beckley Furnace
PS
Time indeed flies like an arrow.
And half a century later, late on the afternoon of Easter Saturday
11 April 2004 my younger daughter Laura and I called into see Isabel.
She had been in the Kent & Sussex
hospital for a couple of weeks.
Making good progress, the doctors were
talking about her being able to go home in a few days’ time.
We chatted about how she was looking forward
to being back in Farmcombe Road.
The latest gossip from Hello magazine.
And the forthcoming cricket season.
The conversation turned – as it so often did – to the Kent v Sussex game when Young Jim had gone to 100 off the last ball of the day …
All those so familiar pieces of the
well-loved story:
The Queen’s
Head
Neil
Armstrong
The one bounce through mid-wicket for 4
As the Ward Sister rang the bell for the end of visiting hours, I said:
I’ll call in again in a couple of days’ time, Is …
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The following morning Isabel had breakfast in bed, went for a wash and walked back to the armchair by the side of her bed for a nap …
She never woke up.
RIP Isabel
Maybe you can
afford to wait.
Maybe for you
there's a tomorrow.
Maybe for you
there's one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much time you can
bathe in it, roll around it, let it slide like coins through your fingers.
So much time you
can waste it.
But for some of us there's only today.
And the truth is, you never really know.
Before I Fall by
Lauren Oliver
RIP Mum
To live on in the hearts of others is not to die
Lovely! Ric, you really should write a book - "Meanderings"
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